The upcoming Budget 2025 is built on three key pillars of the Ekonomi MADANI, which focuses on “Raise the Ceiling” of Malaysia’s economic stature, “Raise the Floor” of Malaysians' quality of life and good governance and public sector reform.
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The upcoming Budget 2025 is built on three key pillars of the Ekonomi MADANI, which focuses on “Raise the Ceiling” of Malaysia’s economic stature, “Raise the Floor” of Malaysians' quality of life and good governance and public sector reform.
“Raise the Ceiling” encompasses a portion which focuses on digital and innovation-led industry, intensifying local innovation and technology to be globally competitive. “Raise the floor” aims to improve the quality of life for all Malaysians to ensure equality in opportunities.
Malaysia’s leading FinTech payment gateway service provider, Curlec by Razorpay, which processes up to 10,000 transactions per second and serves close to 3,000 merchants locally and over 10 million businesses globally supports such initiatives.
Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Curlec, Zac Liew, shares the following key priorities in promoting financial inclusion in the digital economy, driving cross border opportunities, upping cyber security measures and creating a robust ecosystem for startups in Malaysia.
Malaysia has risen in standing as a financially inclusive market to place 18th out of 42 markets, in the 2023 Global Financial Inclusion Index. Significant improvements in Malaysia’s digital economy contributed to its improved financial inclusion position, with the volume of real-time transactions and online connectivity mentioned.
With the push for digital payments in Malaysia, it is also imperative to support both businesses, whether SMEs or enterprises with seamless payment instruments, as well as consumers with secure payment methods.
Curlec by Razorpay makes it easy for businesses of all sizes to collect payments, automate payouts and take control of their cash flow, as well as for consumers to transact seamlessly and securely.
Providing the best of both worlds, Curlec by Razorpay features India’s fintech giant, Razorpay Group’s technology capabilities with Curlec’s deep local understanding of the Malaysian payments ecosystem.
“Since Curlec’s establishment, recurring payments have been one of our most important focus areas. Today, consumers and businesses alike can enable recurring payment schedules, control the billing cycle and get instant alerts on subscription activity with Curlec Subscriptions.
“Our recent partnership with TNG Digital has benefited many Malaysian businesses and consumers. Up to 88% of Malaysians prefer TNG eWallet as a payment method.
“With such a high market penetration rate, leveraging the TNG eWallet payment method would reach the underbanked and those who cannot obtain credit cards,” said Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Curlec, Zac Liew.
“We look forward to seeing the Government further creating more opportunities in the market for payment solutions provider to continue bridging the gap between businesses and financial institutions to reach the underbanked and underserved markets,” he further added.
The Government is committed to accelerating digitalisation, AI adoption, and automation as key components under Mission 2 of the NIMP 2030 and the Ekonomi MADANI framework, promoting productivity and fostering sustainable growth across industries. These efforts are designed to create new opportunities for economic advancement.
The introduction of the Real-Time Retail Payments Platform (RPP) and the expansion of cross-border payment linkages within ASEAN are crucial to driving digital transformation.
By enabling greater interoperability between FinTechs and traditional financial institutions, these developments will revolutionise how businesses and consumers engage in seamless cross-border transactions.
Curlec, part of the Razorpay Group, is inspired by India’s success with the Unified Payments Interface (UPI)—a platform that drives nearly 50% of the world’s real-time payments. UPI’s remarkable growth rate of 380% CAGR since 2016 serves as a blueprint for what Malaysia can achieve.
By tapping into the potential of Malaysia’s DuitNow system, Curlec by Razorpay aims to play a pivotal role in facilitating real-time payments while supporting businesses—whether SMEs or large enterprises—in their digitalisation journey.
“In line with Budget 2025’s vision to promote innovation, we urge the Government to continue prioritising digitalisation and the development of real-time payments infrastructure. The expansion of cross-border payments within ASEAN presents vast opportunities, and we believe that a supportive regulatory framework will be essential to drive these advancements.”
“A clear, consistent set of guidelines that promotes collaboration between FinTech players and traditional financial institutions can greatly accelerate the adoption of digital payments, fostering a more integrated financial ecosystem,” Liew emphasised.
With the explosive growth in the digital payments industry, cyberattacks ranging from incidences of data breaches, ransomware, and fraudulent transfers to leaks have threatened the security and safety of digital transactions worldwide.
According to the Cyber Security Malaysia Report, a staggering amount of 842.84GB of data was leaked, with the telecommunications sector topping the list (424.92GB), followed by government sectors (291.49GB), banking (62.46GB), information technology (IT) (14.60GB), and others (49.37GB).
“We urge the Government to continue monitoring such fraudulent activities, as well as providing stringent measures and guidelines for financial institutions or businesses dealing with sensitive data.
“Tax exemptions for companies who invest in cybersecurity can also be provided, to further encourage businesses to strengthen security protocols.
“Overall, it takes the cooperation and collaboration of industry peers, cybersecurity communities and government agencies to exchange threat intelligence and best practices, to further elevate the cybersecurity safety net at a national level,” Liew further added.
With a secure network, stringent security controls and regular compliance, Curlec by Razorpay prioritises security for close to 3,000 local businesses and one million businesses worldwide.
Some of Curlec’s features include:
With a 99.9% system uptime, Curlec by Razorpay ensures business continuity and stability ensuring that merchants experience minimal to no disruptions. Systems are battle-tested for performance and stress to cater for millions of merchants and process billions of transactions.
With the Government’s focus on establishing the country as a premier global startup hub by 2030, there have been many initiatives aimed at strengthening the startup ecosystem.
As a local fintech startup in Malaysia which was launched in 2018, Curlec’s goal was to make it easy for businesses of all sizes to collect payment, automate payouts and take control of their cash flow.
Today, Curlec is part of the Razorpay group – India’s leading Payments and Banking Platform for businesses. Recently, both the Indian and the Malaysian Government exchanged a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and agreements to enhance cooperation in the areas of emerging technologies.
Razorpay India serves over 10 million businesses and is backed by some of the world's marquee investors including Sequoia Capital India, Tiger Global, Lone Pine Capital, and TCV, and was part of the prestigious Silicon Valley tech accelerator, Y Combinator.
“We’re grateful for the opportunities that have enabled us to transition from a local, to now a global player in the market. Having India’s leading payment and banking platform, Razorpay invest in our company is a huge leap forward.
“We encourage the Government to continue to invest in startups and provide a comprehensive ecosystem that allows for ease of doing business, enables the creation of quality startups, establishes regulatory frameworks that are agile to trends, technology as well as mitigate the risk of innovation.
“Most importantly, it is crucial to leverage both private and public networks to channel opportunities for startups to access both local, regional and international opportunities,” said Liew of his entrepreneurial venture.